We already mentioned recently that Jagex, developers of the forthcoming Transformers Universe online MMO game were supporting Auto Assembly 2012 by providing us with a few prizes to give away to some of our attendees this year but now we can bring you full details of this amazing competition and how you can be one of our winners...

Jagex are sending us a staggering one hundred limited edition Transformers Universe t-shirts for us to give away to Auto Assembly 2012 attendees and all you need to be in with a chance to win one of these t-shirts is to pre-register for the convention! As long as you have booked your tickets for the convention by Wednesday 1st August 2012 you will be entered into a FREE prize draw and we will draw 100 names at random. We will then insert prize claim tickets inside 100 attendee packs that you will pick up from our Registration Desk when you arrive at the convention. All you need to do to claim your t-shirt is then bring your winning ticket to the Control Desk at any point over the weekend from 9:30 am on Saturday morning until the convention ends at 6:00 pm on Sunday and you'll be handed your t-shirt.

Please check your packs very carefully as we can't be held responsible for any lost or unclaimed prize tickets and we will not be able to issue prizes after the event.

Rules

1. The competition is open to all pre-registrants of Auto Assembly 2012 including Dealers and those purchasing a Non-Attendee Pack apart from employees of Jagex or their immediate families.2. Holders of Partner Passes or Under 6s are not eligible to enter the prize draw.3. Entrants must have registered for Auto Assembly 2012 by Wednesday 1st August 20124. Prizes must be claimed by 6:00 pm on Sunday 5th August 20125. Neither Auto Assembly or Jagex will be held responsibility for lost, stolen or damaged claim tickets.6. Choice of t-shirt size is subject to availability7. No substitute prizes or cash alternatives will be offered8. Prizes will not be posted out with the exception of those for Non-Attendees whose prizes will be automatically claimed on their behalf.

Good luck and see you all in two weeks time!

So if you haven't already pre-registered for Auto Assembly 2012 or bought a Non-Attendee Pack there's still time before the deadline of 1st August 2012 and we still have plenty of announcements to make about the convention. After 1st August, the only way you can attend the convention is to buy your tickets on the day itself but you won't get a personalised pass or be entered into this or any of our other pre-convention prize draws!

Auto Assembly 2012 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 3rd - 5th August 2012 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers present and information on all our other guests including voice actors Paul Eiding, Michael Bell and Townsend Coleman, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk

If you can't make it to the convention this year don't forget that tickets are now on sale for Auto Assembly 2013!

As you all know, we recently unveiled the artwork for our convention exclusive litho for Auto Assembly 2012. Illustrated by Jeff Anderson and coloured by Kris Carter, the artwork was a re-imagining of Jeff's original final page from the first chapter of the classic Marvel UK comic story Target 2006 where Galvatron was first introduced into the comics.

Shortly after we revealed the artwork, we announced that there would be a second image on the reverse side of the litho and we're now able to bring you all the first look at this artwork...

This piece features three of the most notable characters portrayed by Auto Assembly 2012's guests of honour - G1 Prowl, TFA Sentinel Prime and G1 Perceptor - and has been illustrated by Ed Pirrie with colours by Liam Shalloo. However, we have one final surprise in store for all of you with the litho this year! When we were looking at both images, many of us here at the convention were torn over what side of the litho we would want to have on display and we knew that many of you would also feel the same way and some had expressed that concern on forums.

At the same time, we had made a late change to our printers for some of our published work this year and we were presented with a fantastic opportunity... so for Auto Assembly 2012 you are not getting one but TWO litho prints! Yes, that's right! Everyone receiving a goodie bag for Auto Assembly 2012 will receive both the Jeff Anderson / Kris Carter and the new Ed Pirrie / Liam Shalloo lithos! Each will be a glossy A2 print and will be part of a goodie bag you will never forget!

Not registered for the convention yet? Hurry while you can as you won't want to miss out on this great gift package! Don't forget that our Non-Attendee Package includes both lithos as well as all our other gifts!

So if you haven't already pre-registered for Auto Assembly 2012 or bought a Non-Attendee Pack there's still time before the deadline of 1st August 2012 and we still have plenty of announcements to make about the convention. After 1st August, the only way you can attend the convention is to buy your tickets on the day itself but you won't get a personalised pass or be entered into any of our pre-convention prize draws!

Auto Assembly 2012 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 3rd - 5th August 2012 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers present and information on all our other guests including voice actors Paul Eiding, Michael Bell and Townsend Coleman, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk

If you can't make it to the convention this year don't forget that tickets are now on sale for Auto Assembly 2013!

That is really nice, it definately adds to the collectibility of the piece, good work!

Anyone wanting to get the Marlboor set, they may still have one gold pack left. I reserved the second-to-last one yesterday evening. It really does look like a great set, and they are a very limited run.

As you all know, everyone who has a full pass for Auto Assembly 2012 this year will receive one of our now-traditional “Goodie Bags”. We have been producing these giveaway packages of free gifts to all of our attendees since 2003 as a token of our appreciation for attendees to thank them for coming along to the convention. We have always believed that there is nothing worse than going along to any convention and going home empty handed. Whether you go along and don’t find any toys that grab your attention or not, or whether money is tight and you are struggling to afford anything, at least you will know that you’ll go home with something.

We firmly believe that by doing this, we can ensure that even if our attendees can only afford their travel costs and tickets, they will have something that they can get signed by our guests and will have something to take home to remember the day / weekend and we think that 2012 is our best ever goodie bag. We’ve been talking recently about some of the things we have been producing for this year, but now we can reveal all of them to you…

So what is there exactly? There are two A2 litho prints. One features G1 Galvatron and is a re-imagining of the final panel from the first chapter of the Marvel UK story Target 2006 and has been illustrated by Jeff Anderson with colours by Kris Carter. The second features characters played by our three guests of honour including Sentinel Prime, Prowl, Perceptor and many more and has been illustrated by our in-house artist Ed Pirrie with colours by Liam Shalloo.

Next we have our four latest postcards to our ongoing collection featuring artwork from Ed Pirrie, Kat Nicholson and Jeff Anderson plus an artcard from Jagex featuring concept art from their Transformers Universe game.

Moving away from artwork, we have two publications for everyone. First is the official convention magazine, The Cybertronian Times. This is our thirteenth issue this year, and it’s a full colour glossy A4 magazine with 40 pages packed with articles, features and comic strips as well as profiles on our guests. The we have a brand new title this year – Iacon Independent. This is our convention exclusive comic and is a 24 page A5 full colour comic full of original comic strips by a wide range of writers and artists. With stories covering G1, Beast Wars and Transformers Animated, there’s something here for everyone!

We do have a limited supply of extra bonus items and these are being inserted at random into the goodie bags that will be handed out at the convention but we’re not saying what they are and it could be anyone who will receive them! will be That’s not all though… if you have ordered our Non-Attendee Package, there are even MORE gifts including additional postcards and an audio CD! And you will also have an equal chance of getting these bonus random items that all our other attendees could end up getting so you could end up with as many as 17-20 items heading your way!

If you haven’t already booked up for the convention or ordered a Non-Attendee Pack, pre-registrations close in just SIX DAYS. After that time, you’ll still be able to come along and pay on the day but Non-Attendee Packs will no longer be available, and you won’t get a personalised pass if you want to attend the convention, nor will you be entered into any of our free prize draws (which are also open to Non-Attendees). If you’re not sure about attending or whether you can afford to come along and have enough money to cover your ticket, travel costs and have spending money left over if you can at least get your ticket and get to Birmingham, with this goodie bag you know you won’t go home empty handed and you’ll have something that you’ll be able to get signed by all our guests!

So what are you waiting for? There’s no better time to book your tickets while you can to be a part of Europe’s largest Transformers convention!

Auto Assembly 2012 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 3rd - 5th August 2012 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers present and information on all our other guests including voice actors Paul Eiding, Michael Bell and Townsend Coleman, visit the website at http://www.autoassembly.org.uk

If you can't make it to the convention this year don't forget that tickets are now on sale for Auto Assembly 2013!

We're just SIX DAYS away from Auto Assembly 2012, Europe's largest Transformers convention but we still haven't finished with our announcements for this year's event! We have a fantastic guest line-up with year with some great comic guests and - for the first time ever - three voice actors, but we thought that you deserved more...

We're now proud to bring you two final guests to the line-up and we hope that you will make them both feel welcome as they make their Auto Assembly debut. First up is our own in-house artist Ed Pirrie who is making Auto Assembly history as our first ever fan artist guest.

In his own words, Ed Pirrie spends most of his days either operating dangerous machinery or drawing it hitting each other. He has been accused of being a "prominent fan-artist" online (pffft!), providing work for several Transmasters UK publications and has a number of popular Mosaics under his belt. He came to the attention of Auto Assembly after winning their art competitions two years straight, and after that he was tapped to produce full-length strips for the convention magazine The Cybertronian Times, as well as working on many other illustrative projects for the convention including their exclusive postcards, lithographs and being responsible for the presentation and look and feel of the event since 2011.

Despite this, he considers having his artwork stolen and used without his permission his highest sign of success to date. He also has a soft-spot for mutants, radioactive monsters, and biotechnological humanoid weapons. Probably best ignored.

Joining Ed is Sam Palmer. Sam is a colourist from Hertfordshire. With a lifetime love of comics, Sam coloured his first ever piece of comic art during his Animation degree in 2008 and was instantly hooked. More hard work and practice eventually lead to fan work such as Transformers: The Lost Seasons and Transformers Mosaics, as well as various other small press work, which helped him try out different techniques and styles to improve and start to hone his craft.

A regular on the UK convention circuit and rarely seen without his trusty portfolio in hand, Sam is always eager to get help, advice and feedback on his work from anyone and everyone who will look at it. This drive and passion lead to a portfolio review with Titan Magazines at London Super Comic-Con in February 2012, from which he was sent 4 pages of try-out linework to colour, and less than 3 months later, He was given his first professional mainstream job, working on an issue of Titan's Transformers Prime Magazine, which is due out in September. Sam never rests on his laurels, He's worked his butt off to get that first mainstream job, and will keep working hard to send his career on to bigger and better things.

Both of them will be in our guest area all weekend meeting fans and sketching. They'll be there alongside all of our other guests including the entire creative team behind Regeneration One (Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman, Stephen Baskerville, John-Paul Bove, and Jason Cardy), James Roberts, Nick Roche, Livio Ramondelli, and our three voice actors - Michael Bell (G1 Prowl, Swoop, Sidewipe and more), Paul Eiding (G1 Perceptor) and Townsend Coleman (TFA Sentinel Prime). For a recap on our guests of honour, you can watch our latest videos here:-

If you haven’t already booked up for the convention or ordered a Non-Attendee Pack which gets you our stunning goodie bag with autographs from our guests, pre-registrations close in just FOUR DAYS. After that time, you’ll still be able to come along to the convention and pay on the day but Non-Attendee Packs will no longer be available. Attendees will not get a personalised pass and will not be entered into any of our free prize draws (which are also open to Non-Attendees) so pre-registration is well worth it.

So what are you waiting for? There’s no better time to book your tickets while you can to be a part of Europe’s largest Transformers convention!

Auto Assembly 2012 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 3rd - 5th August 2012 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers present and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at http://www.autoassembly.org.uk

If you can't make it to the convention this year don't forget that tickets are now on sale for Auto Assembly 2013 which is set to be another stunning weekend!

Auto Assembly 2012 is now only FOUR DAYS away but that doesn't mean we still don't have things to announce! We've kept a few things back until the last minute as we wanted to make sure we still had things to tell you right until you were all getting ready to leave for Birmingham and this is one that certainly put a smile on our faces here at Auto Assembly headquarters today...

We're please to announce that Hasbro UK are once again supporting the convention and our charity fundraising efforts and have very generously donated a great selection of Transformers Prime toys that we will be giving away in our charity raffle this year. After some great deluxe toys? No problem! How about a few of the Cyberverse Commander class figures? They've sent us some of those as well. They've even donated some of the new Weaponiser figures so some of our lucky raffle prize winners will be going home with some great prizes this year!

Tickets for our charity raffle will be on sale all weekend for just 20p each and draws will be taking place all weekend so if you don't win anything first time around keep your tickets safe. Remember the more tickets you buy, not only do you have more chances to win in each draw but the more you help us raise for three worthy charities. And with these great prizes and more besides including signed photos of various Transformers voice actors (did someone say Peter Cullen and Frank Welker?), it's going to be a fantastic charity raffle!

If you havenâ€™t already booked up for the convention or ordered a Non-Attendee Pack which gets you our stunning goodie bag with autographs from our guests, pre-registrations close in just TWO DAYS. After that time, youâ€™ll still be able to come along to the convention and pay on the day but Non-Attendee Packs will no longer be available. Attendees will not get a personalised pass and will not be entered into any of our free prize draws (which are also open to Non-Attendees) so pre-registration is well worth it.

So what are you waiting for? Thereâ€™s no better time to book your tickets while you can to be a part of Europeâ€™s largest Transformers convention!

Auto Assembly 2012 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 3rd - 5th August 2012 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers present and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk

If you can't make it to the convention this year don't forget that tickets are now on sale for Auto Assembly 2013 which is set to be another stunning weekend!

All I wanted to say was I agree, rodimus is giving off a protoman vibe. My first thought was 'why does roddy look like Jack from prime?'

I dont care for the way Drift looks either. But I still love the characters. It's his style, so thats all good, but my humble opinion is I prefer them to look less cartoony than they do.

I like that Milne style, the way he draws roddys "wings" and stuff.

to be honest, I dont know why a bunch of the autobots are basically psychos these days. Whirl obviously, Brainstorms a creeper, and why is Chromedome basically Mindwipe. I read them by trades , so I left off at the part where the ****** robot wants to "be a decepticon" all playin with his fingers like a dumbass. I wanted to slap the snot out of him, and I hope Ratchet does it for me in the next trade. (you can see why I dip in and out of the forums, in hopes of avoiding spoilers....good luck, I already know Grimlocks alive etc....thanks amazon). Oh and if they kill off Ultra Magnus Im gonna be one very unhappy transfan. I know its kinda sorta a time travel thing possibly like x-men future or whatever, but if they kill UM im gonna be pissed. Oh and bring Springer back . If whirl killed him off Im gonna be pretty effin upset as well

Because the post that's linked to the news article was posted here. Pretty much all Auto Assembly related information has been going into this thread since the start of last year, keeps things tidy and any press releases from AA get front paged anyway so nobody should be missing out on developments if they don't check in here.

Sorry guys, looks like I was too busy having fun to do the up to the minute updating on convention goings on that I was planning to. Fantastic weekend, great to see old friends and make new ones and for me that's what really makes AA, the attendees and their boundless enthusiasm. The customising seminar this year was a bit of a personal highlight for me as well and I'm looking forward to this being a regular feature of the program in the future.

Here's what I came home with toywise,

And my pictures from across the weekend including guests, cosplayers, custom contest entries and some snaps of the Hexatron prototype,

As a first time attendee, I'd like to say what a blast AA was. It was really nice to meet like-minded people, and Waaghlord is a cool guy! My favourite part was the kitbashing workshop which was a real laugh to attend, as well as being informative. Nick and Sid were both very helpful. My only regret is that I had a Saturday ticket, and felt like I actually needed more time to enjoy everything.

Other highlights included the RG: One panel, and seeing so many talented artists, writers and actors under one roof, who were all great to talk to. I will definately make it next year. A terrible picture of my 'haul' is below - I'm really glad that I finally got black Hybrid Convoy.